October Crowds At Magic Kingdom
Magic Kingdom is seeing some larger than expected crowds on non-party days in October. The crowds are even more significant when a day is before or after consecutive party days. For example, we saw a ’10’ at Magic Kingdom on Wednesday, October 16, which followed the Halloween party on Monday and Tuesday. Our forecasting already takes this into account but for some reason the it seems to be more pronounced this year. We saw similar spikes to a ’10’ in Fall 2016 and 2017 but not as much in 2018. Based on what we have observed recently it appears that 2017 was the exception.
So, we are making some last-minute adjustments to the crowd level predictions for Magic Kingdom on October 23, 26, and 30. We think these days will see an increase of 2-4 points compared to what we previously predicted. Chances are, if you were using the crowd calendar to plan a visit to Magic Kingdom you were already avoiding these three days. However, if you were planning a visit to Magic Kingdom on these days a touring plan will be essential.
The good news is that crowds have been even lighter than normal on party days. That ’10’ we saw on Wednesday, October 16 was sandwiched between a ‘1’ on Tuesday and a ‘2’ on Thursday. So the ‘1’s, ‘2’s and ‘3’s coming up on the October calendar are very likely to be accurate. Go to the Magic Kingdom on those days and enjoy the light crowds. Note that the calendar predicts a crowd level ‘1’ for Magic Kingdom on Tuesday, October 22 – a day without a party but one with a 6:00 p.m. closing for a corporate event.
You May Also Like...
-
Ever wonder what it's like to brave the Magic Kingdom during the busiest time of year? In a word, it's crowded.…
-
Recently, our team was in the parks for some touring plan testing at Magic Kingdom. Here's some of the sights they…
-
Sometimes it is fun to just take it all in while you're at Walt Disney World. Recently, we spent an afternoon…
-
It's always a magical time when we visit Magic Kingdom. This weekend, our team arrived early to enjoy a morning at…
I was at MK yesterday Wed Oct 31st from 8.30am to 9.30pm and the crowds were busy. However with a bit of luck and use of fast pass we got to see all our attractions with little queuing. 7Dwarfs was the only ride we missed out on. We had a major slice of good luck though when Splash Mountain was down during our FP so we used the FP for Thunder Mountain instead. As we walked out of Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain started again so we walked straight onto that.
The biggest problem yesterday was the crowds for the fireworks. They were manic.I have never seen anything like that before. Main St was closed off at around 8.35 due to overcrowding and there was no space in any of the regular viewing spots.It actually felt uncomfortable bordering on unsafe. We watched from a side street (Market St???) which was good but slightly obstructed by a tree and the slightly side on view takes away from some of the impact IMO.
The other issue with the crowds was that the opportunity for random character meets was greatly reduced. Usually we end up stumbling ocross some random characters around the park but this time any characters had huge queues and IMO wasn’t worth the wait. Not a big deal for us but might be for someone else.
I do think that Disney have messed up their timetable for October with too few “full” days to choose from. Disney “guests” deserve more options, especially when you look at the cost of a day out at MK.
Right now MK is still enjoying daily EEMH for an hour every day which does help spread crowds a bit. Once the Christmas Party season begins and the EEMHs are revoked, how bad is it going to get? Why doesn’t MK add an hour or two at night on non-party days?
With limited time to visit MK, 9pm fireworks and 10pm closing have become an utter madhouse. Everybody’s at MK the same 2 days a week and fireworks and closing are too close together to help stagger guest herds leaving the park. It’s gotten so bad that they are not allowing guests to use the resort monorail unless they can prove a reservation. Bad decision making MK, wake up!
How many attractions can one expect to get through on a CL1 or CL2 day using a touring plan? Is it possible to get through a standardized one-day plan from the Unofficial Guide plus a few other minor attractions?
Completing a one-day plan on a low crowd level day in October is difficult because of the limited park hours. The days are shorter and the evening fireworks are not offered. However, the wait times are so low that you can tour very efficiently all day so if you are ok with skipping the evening stuff (or doing only the evening stuff on another day) you can easily complete everything else on the standard one-day plan.